The NationStates Feminism Thread IV: Fight Like A Girl!

[Ostroeuropa]

Bah, I hate this idea with a passion. The developing world is precisely the sort that should be kept out in my view. Taking them in would diminish our own civilization and level of wealth and stability. It is letting in a trojan horse. It is an outrage that the developing countries aren't expected to take care of their own affairs and want to drag the developed economies down for their benefit and our loss.

The plight of women in very patriarchal societies overseas, is not and shouldn't be our problem.

You do know most developing countries nowadays are only developing because places like Europe stole their shit and enslaved their people, right? Oh wait, of source you don't.

A better term for most developed nations would be "Recovering Nations."

This is dubious because of the impact of concentrating capital.

Nations went to war with and conquered other nations for resources all the time, the thing about European global conquest was that it shifted things.

Instead of 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 turning to 2,0,2,0,2,0,2,0, it became 8,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0.

The "They're poor because of imperialism" narrative seems to imply they would have been substantially better off without it, when that hasn't really been demonstrated. If "The west is wealthy because it stole everyones wealth" then us not doing that doesn't imply they'd all suddenly be as well off as western nations. It implies that they'd be slightly above subsistence poverty if you just decided "Okay, now we'll give all the wealth back and distribute it".

And that's broadly true. But that's not exactly a good thing, and they're actually better off than that *already* thanks to the spillover effects of concentrating capital. (I.E, they get to substantially improve the amount of wealth they have due to technological innovation and trade resulting from imperialism).

Like, two people who subsistence farm and can afford one day off a year each is a pretty dire situation.
One of those people beating up the other to steal their day off so they get two days off is still dire.

One person beating up a thousand people so now he can afford all year off and two people he uses as middle men can half half a year off, well, now you're approaching the "Aristocracy" Plato discussed. You start to shift towards a specialization of labour that eventually liberates everyone.

Local conquest always occurred, but the difference between that and European colonialism was the scale as I said. It is no longer "One man beating up his neighbor to afford a shiny crown" but "One man beating up the whole street so he can afford a shiny crown... but he only needs one of those, so after that, he buys some medical equipment and discovers a cure for cancer".

It has not actually been demonstrated to any degree that "They're poor because of imperialism.". They may well in fact be significantly better off as a result of it and the spillover effects of one society accumulating enough capital to break free of the cycle of "Just-barely-subsisting" civilization. At that point, it's not that they're poor because of it. But rather than we are wealthy because of it, and so are they (relative to what they
would be without it). Such a suggestion is also far more in line with most economic thought as opposed to just lashing out and hating white people, blaming them for the worlds problems. But it's not a popular one among the left and far-left who dominate this discourse because it points to the economic reality that inequality has historically driven innovation.

Show me a country that is worse off than a medieval subsistence state as a result of imperialism and i'll start to take it seriously. There isn't one, because it's simply not true. You can whine about how "Well the fact they have electricity has nothing to do with imperialism", but you'd basically be dismissing something vitally important about what concentrating capital does to innovation.

As such, in "Rawlsian" terms, Imperialism was a positive moral good for the world. ("Inequality is justified and desirable if it makes the worst off in society better off than having equality would.".). The idea that we would have all the modern innovations and interconnected trade we currently do without imperialism is highly dubious and needs to be demonstrated before you can make such a claim that "They're poor because of imperialism.".

No, they're richer than they would have been without it.

[South Reinkalistan]

Bah, I hate this idea with a passion. The developing world is precisely the sort that should be kept out in my view. Taking them in would diminish our own civilization and level of wealth and stability. It is letting in a trojan horse. It is an outrage that the developing countries aren't expected to take care of their own affairs and want to drag the developed economies down for their benefit and our loss.

The plight of women in very patriarchal societies overseas, is not and shouldn't be our problem.

You do know most developing countries nowadays are only developing because places like Europe stole their shit and enslaved their people, right? Oh wait, of source you don't.

A better term for most developed nations would be "Recovering Nations."

They are not merely "recovering". Europe, America, and more recently China are continuing to steal their wealth and enslave their people via neoimperial wage-labour. The general material destitution in these places is why they continue to harbour reactionary social tendencies (i.e. oppression of women) whereas the first world can afford to be liberal now that it is atop its ever-expanding throne of stolen shit.

This is also why, as well, the idea that we should facilitate immigration from these places (such as Sundiata's suggestion) for the "benefit" of these foreign women is also a cop-out. Raping someone's home, making it retain its situation as a backward, imperialised shithole, and then inviting some of the victims here instead is only perpetuating the systems of exploitation which run our world.

[Luminesa]

MFW I read the last half-page.

[Alcala-Cordel]

Maybe we should give Ostro tampons too in the name of men's rights so he doesn't feel like he's being exploited and left out.

I mean you could give men the 20 million dollars towards their issues and this would slightly close the gap. Realistically you'd need to give us hundreds of billions dollars a year, but it would be a start.

While men face certain issues that absolutely need to be addressed better the issue of tampons is entirely unrelated. Trying to delegitimize unrelated issues and yelling "what about me" does absolutely nothing to further men's issues, it just makes it look like your true motivation is hating women rather than helping anyone.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

With regards Ostroeuropa’s earlier post on imperialism and development, I feel it worth pointing out that the majority of humanity did not see any substantive improvements in their standard of living until well after decolonisation, and even if you restrict the discussion to the industrial cities of North America and Western Europe the majority of humanity did not see substantive improvements in their standard of living until the 20th Century.

Imperialism may very well have been necessary for wealth creation, but that wealth didn’t start being spread out of a tiny socioeconomic elite until the political and diplomatic institutions of imperialism started getting dismantled.

[Vassenor]

With regards Ostroeuropa’s earlier post on imperialism and development, I feel it worth pointing out that the majority of humanity did not see any substantive improvements in their standard of living until well after decolonisation, and even if you restrict the discussion to the industrial cities of North America and Western Europe the majority of humanity did not see substantive improvements in their standard of living until the 20th Century.

Imperialism may very well have been necessary for wealth creation, but that wealth didn’t start being spread out of a tiny socioeconomic elite until the political and diplomatic institutions of imperialism started getting dismantled.

I mean it’s still restricted to a tiny socioeconomic elite really.

[Alcala-Cordel]

The most developed countries need to take on as many immigrants from the developing world as possible, give more in foreign aid, and support developing countries militarily as necessary. We could support women these ways if we just had the moral fiber.

Bah, I hate this idea with a passion. The developing world is precisely the sort that should be kept out in my view. Taking them in would diminish our own civilization and level of wealth and stability. It is letting in a trojan horse. It is an outrage that the developing countries aren't expected to take care of their own affairs and want to drag the developed economies down for their benefit and our loss.

The plight of women in very patriarchal societies overseas, is not and shouldn't be our problem.

Man, you aren't helping take care of our own affairs. You have less than no right to spew this vile nonsense. Leaving other people to suffer for one's own benefit is probably the lowest thing a person can do. None of us are any more deserving of a good life than any of the rest of us.

Another thing worth mentioning is this idea of "us" and "them: applying to borders. We live in different sets of abstract boundaries from some other people. Big fucking deal. We have more in common with all the other lower-class people of the world that we do with the bourgeois here.

[South Perosia]

Bah, I hate this idea with a passion. The developing world is precisely the sort that should be kept out in my view. Taking them in would diminish our own civilization and level of wealth and stability. It is letting in a trojan horse. It is an outrage that the developing countries aren't expected to take care of their own affairs and want to drag the developed economies down for their benefit and our loss.

The plight of women in very patriarchal societies overseas, is not and shouldn't be our problem.

Man, you aren't helping take care of our own affairs. You have less than no right to spew this vile nonsense.

They're not wrong.

[Vassenor]

Man, you aren't helping take care of our own affairs. You have less than no right to spew this vile nonsense.

They're not wrong.

Apparently living in constant fear of brown people is correct now.

[Alcala-Cordel]

Man, you aren't helping take care of our own affairs. You have less than no right to spew this vile nonsense.

They're not wrong.

They're absolutely wrong. Hell, when a country creates misery and instability elsewhere taking in refugees is the least it can do.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

I mean it’s still restricted to a tiny socioeconomic elite really.

Well, what I mean is, it’s debatable whether your average industrial worker in London 1890 was any better off, in terms of material wealth and the standard of living, than his peasant farmer ancestors were in 1790. There’s even a persuasive argument to be made that his standard of living was actually quite worse, and this despite the fact that per-capita productivity was much higher in 1890 than in 1790.

But your average office drone in London 1990 clearly does enjoy a much higher degree of material wealth and standard of living than his or her industrial labourer ancestor in 1890 did. A big proportion of the productivity growth between 1890 and 1990 was captured by the working class in a way that simply didn’t happen between 1790 and 1890, and to a large degree this capture can be attributed to the partial dismantlement of authoritarian, elitist imperial institutions. Sure, the elite got even more, but that’s not the point here.

The picture becomes even more stark when you look at the British colonies. None of them got anything until after independence.

[Ostroeuropa]

I mean it’s still restricted to a tiny socioeconomic elite really.

Well, what I mean is, it’s debatable whether your average industrial worker in London 1890 was any better off, in terms of material wealth and the standard of living, than his peasant farmer ancestors were in 1790. There’s even a persuasive argument to be made that his standard of living was actually quite worse, and this despite the fact that per-capita productivity was much higher in 1890 than in 1790.

But your average office drone in London 1990 clearly does enjoy a much higher degree of material wealth and standard of living than his or her industrial labourer ancestor in 1890 did. A big proportion of the productivity growth between 1890 and 1990 was captured by the working class in a way that simply didn’t happen between 1790 and 1890, and to a large degree this capture can be attributed to the partial dismantlement of authoritarian, elitist imperial institutions. Sure, the elite got even more, but that’s not the point here.

The picture becomes even more stark when you look at the British colonies. None of them got anything until after independence.

This is true, but the question is whether imperialism allowed the creation of a much larger pie. Even if everyone except elites got the same amount of pie (And colonies got less), such that when imperialism was dismantled, they were able to get a proportion of the pie that comes out to more pie than they would have without it. I do agree with you that I err'd in not noting that while Imperialism centralizing capital may have meant everyone is better off now, for that to take effect, it seems like imperialism also then needed to be dismantled.

No Imperialism:

1/100 per worker.

Imperialism:

0.8/2000 per worker, 0.5/2000 per colonial worker.

Post-Imperialism:

20/2000 Per Worker, 10/2000 per colonial worker.

[Ostroeuropa]

I mean you could give men the 20 million dollars towards their issues and this would slightly close the gap. Realistically you'd need to give us hundreds of billions dollars a year, but it would be a start.

While men face certain issues that absolutely need to be addressed better the issue of tampons is entirely unrelated. Trying to delegitimize unrelated issues and yelling "what about me" does absolutely nothing to further men's issues, it just makes it look like your true motivation is hating women rather than helping anyone.

This ignores overall context and the continual focus on womens issues to the exclusion of men. It's not just about tampons, but rather a continued pattern of pretending only women have issues worth discussing.

[Neu California]

While men face certain issues that absolutely need to be addressed better the issue of tampons is entirely unrelated. Trying to delegitimize unrelated issues and yelling "what about me" does absolutely nothing to further men's issues, it just makes it look like your true motivation is hating women rather than helping anyone.

This ignores overall context and the continual focus on womens issues to the exclusion of men. It's not just about tampons, but rather a continued pattern of pretending only women have issues worth discussing.

I think you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Again.

[Vassenor]

This ignores overall context and the continual focus on womens issues to the exclusion of men. It's not just about tampons, but rather a continued pattern of pretending only women have issues worth discussing.

I think you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Again.

No you don't understand. Anything that doesn't come with an appropriate Equal Attention Cake is excluding and oppressing men and this is bad and must be fought at every turn.

[Ostroeuropa]

This ignores overall context and the continual focus on womens issues to the exclusion of men. It's not just about tampons, but rather a continued pattern of pretending only women have issues worth discussing.

I think you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Again.

In what sense do you think it's unwarranted? I'm also not jumping to a conclusion, but basing it on extensive analysis of trends i've observed anecdotally, as well as some empirical data. Are you suggesting that there isn't a severe disparity between the amount of focus given to womens issues compared to mens in the media and in our political establishment? That seems to me to be the unwarranted conclusion.

[Ostroeuropa]

I think you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Again.

No you don't understand. Anything that doesn't come with an appropriate Equal Attention Cake is excluding and oppressing men and this is bad and must be fought at every turn.

I mean if you're just going to openly come out and mock the notion that mens issues should receive equal attention, you're basically just telling on yourself that not only is your worldview misandrist, but that misandry is so deeply embedded into your entire worldview that you find it ridiculous to propose doing anything about it.

Why, precisely, are you mocking the notion of equal anything Vass? And yes, it is bad and should be fought at every turn.

[Neuer California]

I think you're jumping to unwarranted conclusions. Again.

In what sense do you think it's unwarranted? I'm also not jumping to a conclusion, but basing it on extensive analysis of trends i've observed anecdotally, as well as some empirical data. Are you suggesting that there isn't a severe disparity between the amount of focus given to womens issues compared to mens in the media and in our political establishment? That seems to me to be the unwarranted conclusion.

Simply put, just because they're taking steps to make things easier for women doesn't mean that they're ignoring or looking to oppress man. It's not a zero-sum game.

[South Reinkalistan]

Well, what I mean is, it’s debatable whether your average industrial worker in London 1890 was any better off, in terms of material wealth and the standard of living, than his peasant farmer ancestors were in 1790. There’s even a persuasive argument to be made that his standard of living was actually quite worse, and this despite the fact that per-capita productivity was much higher in 1890 than in 1790.

But your average office drone in London 1990 clearly does enjoy a much higher degree of material wealth and standard of living than his or her industrial labourer ancestor in 1890 did. A big proportion of the productivity growth between 1890 and 1990 was captured by the working class in a way that simply didn’t happen between 1790 and 1890, and to a large degree this capture can be attributed to the partial dismantlement of authoritarian, elitist imperial institutions. Sure, the elite got even more, but that’s not the point here.

The picture becomes even more stark when you look at the British colonies. None of them got anything until after independence.

This is true, but the question is whether imperialism allowed the creation of a much larger pie. Even if everyone except elites got the same amount of pie (And colonies got less), such that when imperialism was dismantled, they were able to get a proportion of the pie that comes out to more pie than they would have without it. I do agree with you that I err'd in not noting that while Imperialism centralizing capital may have meant everyone is better off now, for that to take effect, it seems like imperialism also then needed to be dismantled.

No Imperialism:

1/100 per worker.

Imperialism:

0.8/2000 per worker, 0.5/2000 per colonial worker.

Post-Imperialism:

20/2000 Per Worker, 10/2000 per colonial worker.

I mean, taking into account the general expansion of imperial infrastructure (+ productive forces) and then using it as an example as a benefit of imperialism is ridiculous: "thank me for facilitating the means by which I shall exploit you!" It is like expecting workers to thank their bosses for establishing the advanced systems of capitalist production by which said workers are exploited.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no post-imperial period, rather a neo-imperial one: this infrastructure has not even really been appropriated, en masse, by the native peoples. By and large a significant amount of value is extracted from the global south via corporate exploitation (for instance, Elon Musk's child slaves!) for the benefit of us in the developed world. The "pie" you mention is provided for, in large, by the working peoples of the world and ever-more those who are subject to imperial exploitation: a large part is appropriated by the elites, the crumbs are tossed down to the rest of us to fight over, and those in the third world are left trying to lick crumbs off the figurative plate for nourishment.

The "pie" was enlarged by imperialism in the same way all exploitation builds up productive forces: through using the surplus of exploitation to advance the systems by which said exploitation is facilitated. This is not something that anybody should be genuinely thankful for.

[Ostroeuropa]

In what sense do you think it's unwarranted? I'm also not jumping to a conclusion, but basing it on extensive analysis of trends i've observed anecdotally, as well as some empirical data. Are you suggesting that there isn't a severe disparity between the amount of focus given to womens issues compared to mens in the media and in our political establishment? That seems to me to be the unwarranted conclusion.

Simply put, just because they're taking steps to make things easier for women doesn't mean that they're ignoring or looking to oppress man. It's not a zero-sum game.

You're viewing it in isolation, something the post explicitly tells you not to do.

[Ostroeuropa]

I mean, taking into account the general expansion of imperial infrastructure (+ productive forces) and then using it as an example as a benefit of imperialism is ridiculous: "thank me for facilitating the means by which I shall exploit you!" It is like expecting workers to thank their bosses for establishing the advanced systems of capitalist production by which said workers are exploited.

This is a bad rebuttal when taken in the context of the discussion, which is why are we wealthy and they are not.

Our wealth is not measured entirely in gunboats and trains. Imperialism did not merely fund imperial infrastructure.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no post-imperial period, rather a neo-imperial one: this infrastructure has not even really been appropriated, en masse, by the native peoples. By and large a significant amount of value is extracted from the global south via corporate exploitation (for instance, Elon Musk's child slaves!) for the benefit of us in the developed world.

Are they still living in medieval standards of living or have they improved? Again, this is not actually a rebuttal. I'm here saying "This inequality has actually made everyone more wealthy, not poorer" and you wander in and say "That's wrong, because look, inequality.".

It just tells me you don't actually know how to engage with the information you're confronted with.

The "pie" you mention is provided for, in large, by the working peoples of the world and ever-more those who are subject to imperial exploitation: a large part is appropriated by the elites, the crumbs are tossed down to the rest of us to fight over, and those in the third world are left trying to lick crumbs off the figurative plate for nourishment.

This also does not actually address the point.

The "pie" was enlarged by imperialism in the same way all exploitation builds up productive forces: through using the surplus of exploitation to advance the systems by which said exploitation is facilitated.

Ah, good. So you admit it was enlarged then. You just appear to be under the impression that we invested all profits directly into exploitation, which is... let's call it "Wrong".

This is not something that anybody should be genuinely thankful for.

Noting that people are telling lies when they say people are poorer now because of imperialism is not the same thing as saying they should be thankful for it.

If I notice you are shite at running your farm and its running at a loss, beat you up and lock you in the cellar, and then turn it into a million dollar franchise, before letting you out and giving you a 1/5th share in a highly productive venture, you don't have to be thankful to me. But you do have to stop pretending you are now all of a sudden poor because of it, because that's simply not true.

And without that, what have you got to keep pretending what White people did was somehow special and beyond the pale?

"Imperialism mean because war and conquest.".

Everybody did that. People should get over it. The justification for their continued seething and raging about it is based on pure economic illiteracy mixed with anti-western racism.

[Celritannia]

The discussion of imperialism is not really needed in this thread.

[Ostroeuropa]

The discussion of imperialism is not really needed in this thread.

Yeah, probably true. It's part of feminist discourse supposedly, but it's a bit too focused on it for that. I'll stop.

[Ors Might]

While I support supplying students with free menstrual products, I can’t help but think Ostro at least raises a fair question here. Why has this become a focus over other issues that seem to be far more pressing? Because while its all well and good that students are given the tools needed to take care of their menstrual cycles, it seems even better to ensure that these students aren’t drugged out of their gourd just for demonstrating normal levels of rowdy behavior.

[Neuer California]

Simply put, just because they're taking steps to make things easier for women doesn't mean that they're ignoring or looking to oppress man. It's not a zero-sum game.

You're viewing it in isolation, something the post explicitly tells you not to do.

I'm doing the opposite, actually. I'm focusing on a general trend in your posts that suggests that anything pro-woman is automatically anti-man.

While I support supplying students with free menstrual products, I can’t help but think Ostro at least raises a fair question here. Why has this become a focus over other issues that seem to be far more pressing? Because while its all well and good that students are given the tools needed to take care of their menstrual cycles, it seems even better to ensure that these students aren’t drugged out of their gourd just for demonstrating normal levels of rowdy behavior.

I have a question for you: why should we focus on only the big pressing stuff, when we can also take care of the smaller stuff at the same time? I mean, its not like we can only focus on a few issues at a time or only the biggest issues are worthy of our attention. Also, I'm sure there are quite a few people who would think lack of reliable access to menstrual products is a big issue. It's a matter of perspective.

Edit: for example, I consider the overmedication of kids, which you call a major issue, one of moderate importance, and one that pales in importance to the problem of bullying in schools, which I see as the most important issue affecting education